It's 20 minutes long and you need to invest the full 20 minutes to gain all the useful information therein. I've selected this one because it was the first one that comes closest to explaining the principles I've been taught to use. I've never heard of the guy before finding this video and I don't even know where he's based.

Probably the most important principle to understand is the overlaying of the collar training on the leash training methods. If the dog doesn't understand the commands or what is expected, the collar is NOT the way to begin. In a sense, the collar is a remote control leash. It's not meant to be used as a punishment and in fact, doing so would probably reduce its effectiveness.

If anyone comes across a point where there is evidence of suffering on the part of the dog, please note the time in the video it occurs because I'd like to go back to see it for myself.

I'm not advocating for the prong collar - but it's irrelevant to the point of the video... and for what it's worth, I saw the dog standing calmly at 1:45, with no evidence of suffering or even discomfort...

I don't really want to get bogged down in irrelevancies, if that's OK.

The question you have to ask yourself is, would you use it on your own child. we know a child gets to about two years old before it can understand language, but with a dog we expect it to learn its own language and ours by about eight weeks old. If the dog does not start doing what we want fairly quickly, we start coming up with alternative methods to get the dog to comply with our wishes.
There are plenty of safer alternative methods to use in this modern world, if only we could be a bit more kinder and have a bit more understanding.

Douglas wrote:The question you have to ask yourself is, would you use it on your own child. we know a child gets to about two years old before it can understand language, but with a dog we expect it to learn its own language and ours by about eight weeks old. If the dog does not start doing what we want fairly quickly, we start coming up with alternative methods to get the dog to comply with our wishes.
There are plenty of safer alternative methods to use in this modern world, if only we could be a bit more kinder and have a bit more understanding.

OK, I'll bite...

What would you do to cause a child to come back when called, reliably? Recognizing that a dog doesn't have the ability to learn more than a few dozen words and is unable to reason things out, how would you tailor your methods used for a child for use with a dog?

It's generally accepted that a dog's intellect grows to perhaps equivalent to a 2 or 2.5 year old child. And of course, there will always be 'slow' ones to lower the curve... I can recall waiting to cross a street with my 2.5 year old daughter... she knew to stand with me and hold my hand. Then she saw her mother across the street and jerking free from my hand, was headed across the street like a shot. It was a heart attack moment I can tell you and she wasn't listening to me yelling to STOP!! She needed to be older to appreciate the consequences and 'recall reliably'...

Like with a dog, it's always that one time that ends badly... so whatever your method, it needs to be solid.